


Four Knights of Beacon

by Elfcow



Category: Dark Souls (Video Games), RWBY
Genre: All characters are gay unless otherwise specified, F/F, Four Knights of Gwyn, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-27
Updated: 2018-07-27
Packaged: 2019-06-17 06:20:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15455229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elfcow/pseuds/Elfcow
Summary: Four young Hunters-in-training - Gough, Ornstein, Artorias, and Ciaran - come to Beacon as first years and are thrust together. This unlikely band must learn to work as a team as they learn to fight Grimm and become true Hunters under Ozpin's tutelage. They will learn to be beacons against the dark alongside other young students like Glynda Goodwitch, Bartholomew Oobleck, and Peter Port. This team comes together in the years before RWBY, before STRQ, before even Mountain Glenn fell; it is a seemingly peaceful world. But the machinations of Salem and Ozpin are always moving, and our heroes may well find themselves caught up in the great chess match for Remnant.





	Four Knights of Beacon

Prologue: Equinox

 

          Gough perched on the end of his childhood bed, hunched intently over his carving. His bed was normal by any description, yet compared to him it was tiny, fit only to rest his head and torso. The whole room was cramped; even sitting, Gough’s head brushed the ceiling. His mother had painted a cloud-spotted sky and a soaring hawk on the ceiling when he was little - he still remembered lying on his then-enormous bed as a child and staring up at its outstretched wings in wonder. His accommodations at Signal had been built to his size, but they had been white-washed and formed of clean lines, with only a small nightstand for personal effects. His childhood room was lined with shelves full of books and carvings, toys and shiny rocks, notebooks and intricate puzzles designed to train the mind and fingers. Gough felt cozy here - it was only fitting that he spend his last night here awake, stealing a small space for himself in the nether hours of the morning. 

          He turned the block of wood gently in his hands, his huge fingertips tracing the grain. He put his knife to the wood and shaved off pieces in smooth, slow strokes, pausing occasionally to wipe his blade on his sleeve. There was a knack to carving, a quirk of the trade that had nothing to do with how steady your hand was, or how keen your blade was. The trick was to see the unborn potential in the wood, the simple desire for shape within the material. Everyone and everything wanted to be something more, something better or at least different, whether they knew it or not. Gough could see the straining for a smile in the shape of the wood, a craggy, grinning face hiding in the whorls of the grain. All he had to do was set it free.

          As he bent over his work, the shadows shifted, and a shaft of emerald light fell on Gough’s hands. He looked up, and out of his childhood window. The city of Vale spread out below, buildings of stone and steel and brick, bustling streets lined with holographic posts and signs. Above it all a tower rose, perched on the cliff overlooking the city, a spire that pierced the clouds: Beacon Tower. Its green light shone clear down into Gough’s room, alighting on his hands and on his carving. Gough blew sawdust off of the wood and held it up. A semblance of a face was showing, but in the green light its cheery grin soured into a smirk. Gough lowered his project to his lap and stared up at Beacon. In a few hours, his parents would come in to “wake” him, and he would take his bags to the docks and fly up to Beacon and that would be that. Tomorrow he would be Gough, Huntsman-in-training, training to slay monsters. He bent back to his carving, working out the rough shape of a nose. Tonight, he could still be a boy in the room where he grew up. He could hunch over his work and disappear into it, while wood shavings floated on the air, and green-edged shadows lengthened on the floor.

 

* * *

 

          Ornstein stumbled upstairs away from the light and mirth of the party, towards the cool and refreshing dark. He emerged onto the balcony and leaned heavily on the banister. His head and fingertips buzzed with the rush of drink, but the chill air eased the pressure, and he was able to exhale. Ornstein looked out over uptown Vale, over the bustling streets and lively neighborhoods of his youth. And as always, his gaze tracked up, up, up to the emerald light that overlooked the city. The tower was a shining beacon to humanity below, and a warning lighthouse to the darkness around, but to Ornstein, it had always been like a second sun, a lodestar that pulled him from his very chest.

          “I didn’t come all the way up to the city just so you could leave your own party, dumbass,” a voice called from behind him.

          “Hey, Smough,” Ornstein said. 

          “I mean it. You should come down and enjoy yourself. There’s a couple of girls from downtown doing one-armed kegstands.” Smough said.

          “Sure,” Ornstein said. He didn’t move. He felt a large presence come up behind him, but he kept his eyes resolutely forwards.

          “Well, if you’re going to stargaze all night like an idiot, I might as well stay with you,” Smough said. “Wouldn’t want you going over the railing.”

          “As if heights ever bothered me.”

          “As if you could ever hold your liquor.”

          “Fuck off,” Ornstein said. 

          Smough laughed and clapped Ornstein on the back, nearly knocking him over. Smough’s hand engulfed Ornstein’s entire shoulder; Smough was as large and tall as Ornstein was short and compact, and his skin was a warm brown to Ornstein’s regal black. Ornstein had always considered himself strong, but the casual power in Smough’s hands always reminded him where he really was. Ornstein sighed and leaned back against Smough’s soft bulk. 

          “I just can’t believe it’s real,” Ornstein said. “Tomorrow, I’ll fly all the way up there, and my whole life will change. I’ll be a Huntsman in training.” 

          “You’ll be fine, drama queen,” Smough said. “They’ll see the shit you can do and make you a Huntsman on the spot.”

          “I don’t know, man. If you couldn’t do it, how can I..?” Ornstein felt Smough tense behind him, and he winced. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have-”

          “It’s fine,” Smough said, his voice tight. “It’s fine.”

          “No, I’m sorry,” Ornstein said.

          “Listen,” Smough said. “You’ll do great. You’re not like me. You’re smart, you’re proper, you’re pretty - they’ll love you up there.”

          “Thanks man,” Ornstein said. He let his head drop against Smough’s chest.

          The city hummed around them, blending with the thumping beats of the party below, wrapping the two of them in a cacophonous white noise. Beacon Tower loomed large in the sky, tinting the whole city with subtle green. Ornstein closed his eyes and let the song of the city wash over him, insulating him from the future, wrapping him in a familiar hum.

          “So you think I’m pretty, huh?”

          “Shut the fuck  _ up _ .”

          Smough’s laughter bubbled out despite his indignation. Ornstein laughed too, and relaxed into Smough’s rumbling belly. They woke that morning in the same position, the sun gilding Ornstein’s hard edges and Smough’s soft roundness with the same gentle brush.

 

* * *

 

          Artorias walked down the middle of the street, his blue cloak swirling about him, heedless of any traffic. In this dark hour Vale slept, or at least dozed, and the streets were empty - he walked a city that may as well have been populated by spirits. The light of Beacon shone down over a slumbering Vale, streaking the streets with green and casting pale shadows in the alleyways it could not reach. Artorias shot a sidelong glance at the tower and drew his cloak about himself. He had heard that Beacon was supposed to be warm, welcoming; a comforting watcher and a fierce protector of the city. The ghostly light of that tower felt only cold to him, and Artorias marched faster, trying to force warmth into his aching calves.

          It was his first night in the city, and he had arrived too late, or perhaps too early, and he had no money for a room. The gates to the docks had been locked in his face, and they would not open until noon - so Artorias had decided to walk all night to stay warm. The slumbering city seemed tranquil enough, but it felt too huge and empty for him to trust its streets with his sleep. So he wandered, forcing the soreness of travel from his legs, and walked the city alone.

          His breath came in crystalline clouds, struck through with green light, and he shivered. It was still the last day of winter, and he felt it keenly. Artorias frowned at Beacon Tower, and turned down a side street, breaking away from the light. Vale seemed to be laid out in a grid pattern, so as long as he stuck on this perpendicular path, he should avoid the glaring green light for a while. He enjoyed the shadows only for a moment before the alley turned and dropped him on a main avenue, facing the great emerald light. Artorias shrugged and picked another street. Before long he rounded the corner again to face Beacon.

          “Very funny,” he said, and chose another path. This time he chose a parallel alleyway, shadowed by encroaching houses, that should have led him directly away from the tower and in relative peace for many blocks. He emerged from the shadows onto another main street, which should have been running North-South, yet was instead running East-West, back towards Beacon.

          Artorias looked up towards the tower.

          “You’ll have me in a few hours, won’t you? Let up a little,” he said. The tower, predictably, said nothing. Artorias turned, letting his cloak flair out, and stormed onward. He didn’t know why the signal tower bothered him so. He had held the image of Beacon in his head since he was a child, but now that he could see it, the very light unleashed brambles under his skin. He walked on, determined to see how far he could get before getting spun around.

          It only  _ seemed  _ that Vale was laid out in a grid pattern; in reality it was warped, twisted over the rolling valley that it had been built in. And, impossibly, every street lead to Beacon. Turn after turn Artorias came back to it, until he was utterly lost.

_           I should have kept track of where I’d already been, _ he thought. It was too late now. He would have to wait until morning, for the Sun and for flows of people to guide him back to the docks. He walked on, until his feet were numb, and he came once again onto a main avenue, carved from the city by the ceaseless river of Beacon’s light. He stood transfixed in the middle of the street, staring up at the twinkling tower, his hands loose at his sides. He stayed that way for what seemed an eternity, as the city fell away from the corners of his vision, and Beacon grew to fill his eyes. And so he stayed, embraced in green light, until the windows all around him began to bloom with light and warmth.

          There was a crack, a hair’s-width of break in the encircling dark, and sunlight leapt through from behind Beacon, dancing red and gold on the rooftops of Vale, startling Artorias to motion. Beacon’s light was rendered pale and weak, and Artorias shook himself and set off towards what he hoped was the direction of the docks. The city stirred to wakefulness as Artorias hurried onwards. He could feel the city’s early risers staring at him as he stalked past, but he didn’t care. He was tired of wandering. He was ready to hunt.

 

* * *

 

          Ciaran paced back and forth inside the hotel room, drumming her fingers on her thighs, checking and re-checking her bags. She had her small duffel with all of her clothes and supplies, her armor neatly stacked and wrapped in cloth, and a small body-hugging backpack for day ventures. Her scroll, an outdated model with a cracked screen, was on her pillow. The hotel room was sparse, dirty, simple. It was the best Ciaran could afford, and for only one night at that. Her mother had not been lying when she said Vale was impossibly expensive. Ciaran had used the last of her Lien to stay here, and she was counting on Beacon to take care of the rest all Spring. She took one look out the grimy window at the looming tower before turning back to her room. She decided to check everything over once more, just to be safe.

          She ran through the list again: duffel, armor, scroll, wallet. _Oh!_ _My wallet!_ She dug through her duffel, throwing clothes aside until she reached the bottom. She found her winter pants and shook them out until her wallet dropped from the back pocket. She sighed, tucked it into her waistband, and set to refolding her clothes. When everything was neatly packed she finally stood, knuckling her back. Ciaran took a look around and ran her fingers across her shaven scalp, pushing back hair that was no longer present. Alright. She was ready. She should sleep; tomorrow had been a long time coming, and it would be just like her to oversleep for it.

          Ciaran drew the curtains shut on on Beacon, leaving an emerald after-image in the center of her vision. She pulled a rubber doorstop from her backpack and wedged it under her hotel door.  _ Alright. There’s nothing more to do but sleep _ . Ciaran knelt beside her bed, hands clasped, head bowed so her forehead just touched her fingertips. She muttered a few words there, quietly to herself, before crawling into bed. She lay on her back, scroll and wallet tucked against her skin, staring into the dark that was her ceiling. Sickly yellow light crept under the doorframe, and shadows dipped and stretched within it. Green light dripped from beneath the blinds, forming droplets on the floor and crawling out towards her bed. Ciaran realized she was lying tense, ready to spring, and willed herself to relax. She was going to be ok. She was going to be just fine. She was in the city of Vale. Tomorrow she would be in Beacon. She was going to be ok.

          Ciaran lay there, tense, her mind racing, as green and gold fingers of light reached across the floor and crawled up her bed. Only when soft sunlight poured around her blinds did she relax, and sink into her bed. And only when she woke later did she realize that she had overslept. She was going to be late.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all for reading! This is a brand-new story that I am very excited to tell. I will try to update roughly every week or so. Please feel free to comment! I read all comments!
> 
> Pronunciation guide:
> 
> Gough (Goff) (hard g)
> 
> Smough (Smow) (like snow)
> 
> Ciaran (key-are-an) (emphasis on "key")
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
